Week 6, Video 6: The Benefits Of Mindfulness II

What are the determinants of a happy and fulfilling life?
This is surely one of life’s biggest questions, and a question that has interested many of our ancestors. Buddha famously gave up his kingdom in search of happiness. Several Greek philosophers (from Aristotle to Epicurus and Plato to Socrates) had their own views on what it takes to be happy. And of course, we all have our own theories about happiness too.
How valid are our theories?
Until recently, if you wished for an answer to this question, you would've been forced to base it on discussions with spiritual leaders. Or, if you were lucky, you could've based it on late-night (and perhaps intoxicant-fueled) conversations with friends and family. Happily, all that has changed now. Over the past decade-and-a-half, scientists have gotten into the act big time. We now have a pretty good idea of what it takes to lead a happy and fulfilling life.
This course, based on the award-winning class offered both at the Indian School of Business and at the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin, developed by Prof. Raj Raghunathan (aka "Dr. Happy-smarts") draws content from a variety of fields, including psychology, neuroscience, and behavioral decision theory to offer a tested and practical recipe for leading a life of happiness and fulfillment.
Although not mandatory, reading Prof. Raj's forthcoming book, titled If you're so smart, why aren't you happy? can help you review and assimilate the material covered in this book at your leisure.
For Coursera learners alone, the hardcover version of the book is available for a deep discount of 50%, plus shipping and handling. You can order the hardcover for 50% off by writing to Aaron at: Aaron@800ceoread.com. Please mention that you are a student of the "coursera happiness course" in your email.
The course will feature guest appearances by several well-known thought leaders, including:
- Dan Ariely (author of Predictably Irrational and, soon to be released, Irrationally Yours),
- Ed Diener (“Dr. Happiness”),
- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (author of Flow),
By taking this course, you will discover the answers to questions such as:
- Why aren’t the smart-and-the-successful as happy as they could—or should—be
- What are the “7 Deadly Happiness Sins” that even the smart and the successful commit?, and
- What are the “7 Habits of the Highly Happy” and how can you implement them in your life?
By the end of the course, I expect students who have been diligent with the lectures and exercises to not just gain a deeper understanding of the science of happiness, but to also be significantly happier.

教学方

Dr. Rajagopal Raghunathan

脚本

[MUSIC] Hi there, welcome back. In the last video we saw how mindfulness has all these positive effects. It lowers stress levels, increases response flexibility, enhances curiosity and interest, increases perceived time abundance, and improves happiness levels by changing the structure of the brain. The final benefit that I just mentioned, improved happiness levels, as we saw, happens through a change in the physiological structure of the brain through something that Professor Sara Lazar and her authors call cortical thickening. Which is a thickening of the left side of the prefrontal cortex. One side benefit of this cortical thickening is that our brain ages less rapidly than it otherwise would. As both the paper that I just mentioned by Sara Lazar and her colleagues and some other papers have shown. Another physiological change that occurs as a result of mindfulness is the reduced expression of genes that produce inflammation in the body. As a result of lower inflammation, participants in the paper that you now see on your screen were far less stressed out when asked to do something that many of us consider to be one of the most terrifying things. Giving a speech and performing mental calculations while being videotaped in front of an audience. Because mindfulness has an effect on both the brain and the body, you wouldn't be surprised to learn that people suffering from a skin disease called psoriasis got cured much faster after undergoing mindfulness training than those in a control condition, as this study that you now see on your screen showed. Another beneficial effect of mindfulness is that it improves heart health. Studies have shown that among those who practice mindfulness, something known as vagal tone improves. Things like blood pressure and arrhythmia, which is irregular heartbeat, and other symptoms of poor heart health, are all affected and heart health improves by the vagal tone. So mindfulness directly affects heart health, as this paper, published by Professor Blaine Ditto and his colleagues have shown. Vagal tome improves psychological health, too, by making you a more compassionate person. A final physiological benefit of mindfulness is that it has been shown to prevent the shortening of something called telomeres, which offer protection to the ends of chromosomes in the cells of our body, and thus help prevent the onset of diseases like cancer. And it also slows down aging. And that's just the physiological benefits of mindfulness. In addition to these physiological benefits, there are tons of psychological benefits. As we already saw, mindfulness lowers stress, improves well-being and makes you more engaged with the present. As a result of this last benefit, mindfulness slows down adaptation to things. You may remember from week two that adaptation is one of the biggest happiness killers. And so mindfulness helps improve happiness by slowing down adaptation to things. The reason mindfulness slows down adaptation is that it makes you realize that nothing is really boring if you pay sufficient attention to it. Here's how Sam Harris, the famous atheist that I briefly mentioned in week one, the guy with the supersensitive [BLEEP] meter, summarizes this idea in his excellent book Waking Up. One of the first things one learns in practicing meditation is that nothing is intrinsically boring. Indeed, boredom is simply a lack of attention. Pay sufficient attention, and the mere experience of breathing can reward months and years of steady vigilance. Sam Harris in Waking Up. I would replace the word vigilance with absorption, but I'm being nitpicky here. Sam's point, which is that nothing is intrinsically boring and that boredom arises because of a lack of attention, I think is well taken. What this means is that even the most mundane of things, like breathing in his example, can be very interesting and you could spend hours upon hours marveling at the miracle of breathing if you pay sufficiently intense attention to it. Another psychological benefit of mindfulness, and I already touched upon this a little bit when I talked about vagal tone, is that it makes you more kind and compassionate. So it becomes easier for you to adopt the third habit of the highly happy, which is to be loving and giving. One reason why mindfulness promotes compassion is that it improves your ability to empathize with others by activating a part of your brain called the insular cortex, as this paper that you now see on the screen shows. As a result, those that practice mindfulness are more altruistic or pro-social, as this paper that you now see on your screen showed. In addition to improving both physical and mental health, mindfulness also improves your chances of success. A big reason for this, which I touched upon earlier, is that it improves response flexibility and, hence, improves emotional intelligence. It give you just a little more space and time to choose how you want to react to a situation. So for example, instead of shooting off a hasty and equally angry response to an irritable email, you may choose to send a more mature one or choose not to send anything at all. These small differences can, over a period of months or years, add up to quite a big difference in how you are viewed and rated by other people, your peers, let's say, or your bosses. Another way in which mindfulness improves your chances of success Is by enhancing your creativity. A lot of studies have shown that we produce our best ideas when our mind is relatively calm. That's when we appear to have maximum access to all experiences and knowledge. So when we relax it's as if we can tap into all parts of our brain and therefore make connections between two apparently unrelated thoughts or memories, which, of course, is critical for creativity. By contrast, when we feel stressed out, we aren't able to make these connections as easily. This idea that we are more creative when we feel relaxed is, of course, quite consistent with what I discussed in week one, that we are more productive and successful when we feel positive. So to summarize, there are a slew of beneficial effects of mindfulness, including physiological benefits like improved heart health and health of the immune system. Psychological benefits like feeling relaxed and being more compassionate. And career benefits like emotional intelligence and creativity. What I find very curious about all of this is that why mindfulness should have all these positive effects. After all, all you're trying to do when you're trying to be mindful is letting reality play itself out and merely observing it. Why should being fully aware of what's going on without judging or trying to change things lead to all these amazing, positive effects? It's not very clear. I mean, it could very well have turned out that being mindful could have made us feel supremely anxious or have led to all kinds of negative effects on our heart health, immune system, telomeres and so on. Why is it that being mindful is so good for you, your body, your intellect and your well-being? One answer to this question, and this is the answer with which not only spiritualists but even some scientists appear to agree, is that our basic nature is one of happiness. Many religious traditions, of course, echo this idea. For example, there is this phrase, the kingdom of God is within you, in the Bible. One way to interpret this phase is that you don't need to search elsewhere for salvation or happiness or bliss. It's within you. In Hinduism and Buddhism, there are even more direct references to this idea that our true nature is one of happiness or bliss. Chade Meng, the author of Search Inside Yourself, who I mentioned in an earlier video, once asked Alan Wallace, a very well respected mindfulness expert and author of several books on the topic, including The Attention Revolution, why is it that we feel happy when we are mindful? And here is what Wallace had to say in response, and I quote. Happiness is the default state of the mind. Here's Shawna Shapiro, the professor from Santa Clara University whom I had the pleasure of interviewing just a few days earlier, echoing pretty much the same sentiment. Note that I wasn't able to get a video feed of Professor Shapiro because she was commuting when she was talking to me, so you'll only hear her voice here. >> I agree. I definitely buy into that philosophy that our true state is one of Buddha nature. >> If, as all of these mindfulness findings suggest and as Alan Wallace and Professor Shapiro agree, happiness lies within us, and the way to this source of happiness is through mindfulness, wouldn't you agree that it would be a smart thing to do to learn mindfulness? And yet, most of us, even those who are very familiar with mindfulness as a concept or as a practice, find it difficult to get around to practicing it on a regular basis. Why is this the case? That's a question to which I will get to in the next couple of videos. See you soon. [MUSIC]